In recent years, deepfake technology has begun appearing in court cases, political scandals, and financial crime investigations.

As Grok and other generative systems expose deepfakes, many people now see how fragile digital identity has become. What once seemed theoretical now appears in lawsuits, headlines, and serious legal debates. Faces, voices, and likenesses are no longer just media. They are data.

I learned this long before it became a trending topic.

When Your Digital Identity Gets Attacked

I was hacked during the same period my online visibility began rising across search, social platforms, and AI discovery. PBN style websites appeared and pretended to represent me while quietly collecting traffic and potential leads. They did not use my photos, but they copied my writing and digital footprint.

It felt like watching my online presence being split and repackaged without my consent. I could see it happening in real time through search results, analytics patterns, and inbound messages that did not match where I was actually publishing. Pages I did not control were ranking for my name and creating confusion about what was official. That disconnect was my first signal that my digital identity was being quietly duplicated.

Yet one detail stood out while all of this was unfolding. There was no real audiovisual material that could convincingly show me as a living, speaking person. My digital identity existed, but the biometric signals needed for impersonation were not widely available. That detail changed how I understood online presence.

What Working in AI Taught Me About Identity Models

Before becoming a creator, I worked inside AI research environments at Stanford Research Institute during the period when modern deepfake technology was just emerging.

In 2018 and 2019, a television crew came through our lab to film an early segment explaining deepfakes to the public, with senior researchers demonstrating how facial motion and voice could be synthesized. Watching colleagues I worked with appear inside those early demonstrations made the risks of biometric replication very real long before most of the world understood what was coming.

At the same time, I was working on a lip reading project that trained machines to interpret speech through facial movement alone. We were training models to map subtle mouth shapes, timing, and muscle movement to phonetic sound, which meant a face could effectively become an audio source. That experience made something unmistakably clear. AI systems do not need passwords to know who you are. They need enough video of your face moving in sync with your voice. Your mouth and sound become a digital blueprint.

That knowledge stayed with me when I moved into creative work. It quietly shaped every decision about how I would appear online.

Why I Never Talk Directly to the Camera

When I became a creator, I did not use long talking head videos. I chose aesthetic footage, voiceovers, captions, and short face moments. I avoided long clips where my lips matched my voice.

This was not because I was uncomfortable on camera, had nothing to say, or did not like how I looked. It was about knowing what data I was releasing. I wanted control over how much biometric material existed about me.

That is likely why the fake websites that pretended to be me had no real photos or videos of me. They could copy parts of my website and metadata, but they did not have enough biometric material to convincingly recreate my identity.

Every synced voice and mouth clip becomes training data for replication. I chose a creative style that limited that risk.

How I Stayed Visible Without Giving Away My Biometric Identity

My AI visibility grew even without direct camera speaking. I built multiple Knowledge Panels, brand recognition, and strong AI level discovery signals. My presence expanded across Google AI, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other systems.

That happened because identity systems reward consistent signals across text, images, links, and engagement far more than they reward raw video volume. I gave those systems stable data they could verify without giving them biometric material they could copy.

AI did not need my lips to recognize me. It needed consistency, images, writing, and engagement across platforms. I gave it a complete narrative without giving it my biometric blueprint. That balance helped my brand grow while protecting my personal data.

Why Limiting Biometric Data Helps More Than Just You

The more biometric data exists, the easier it becomes to misuse identity. Every clear face and synced voice becomes reusable data without consent. This affects journalists, activists, and everyday people.

How you appear online is a collective safety choice. When creators reduce exploitable material, they slow misuse across the system. That makes deepfake abuse harder for everyone.

My choices were not about isolation. They were about reducing harm in a shared digital space.

In a world where digital likeness is beginning to appear in courtrooms and policy debates, limiting biometric exposure is not just personal safety. It is digital ethics.

Why Most Creators Are Making Deepfakes Easier

Many creators rely on long talking head videos. This includes TikTok creators doing makeup while talking, people filming themselves sitting in their cars, and YouTubers who show their faces for hours at a time. These formats provide everything needed to recreate a believable digital person.

High resolution faces and clean audio make replication easier. When lips, expressions, and voice are captured together, they form a complete biometric dataset. That data can be reused without the person’s control.

This is why movie stars, singers, and highly visible public figures are now frequent deepfake targets. Their careers depend on massive amounts of synchronized face and voice footage, which gives AI systems endless training material.

This is not about blame or scare tactics. It is about understanding the cost of exposure in the AI era. Every time someone uploads a clear face and synced voice, they are not just publishing content. They are expanding the global training pool that makes deepfakes easier for everyone.

Every creator should know what they are releasing to the world.

How to Protect Your Digital Identity While Still Growing

I follow what I call a biometric safe visibility model. It is based on controlling how much biometric data I release. This allows me to grow online without exposing my face and voice together.

I separate my face from my voice in most content. I use voiceovers instead of speaking directly to the camera. This prevents my lips and audio from becoming synchronized training data.

I rely on visuals, captions, and written storytelling. These formats allow strong engagement without biometric exposure. They still give AI systems enough data to recognize my identity.

I keep my branding consistent across every platform I use. Images, names, and writing styles remain stable over time. This creates clear identity signals without relying on biometric content.

I limit how much biometric data I publish. That includes long videos where my face and voice are clearly synced. Control over your digital body is now part of brand strategy.

Why This Matters More Than Ever Now

I survived hacking, impersonation, and large scale digital misuse. I stayed visible to AI while protecting what makes me irreplaceable. That was not luck. It was informed design.

Being a creator now means understanding the systems around you. Visibility without awareness creates risk. Visibility with strategy creates power.

Most people think they are showing who they are online. In reality, AI systems are building models of them. Those models persist long after the posts are deleted.

I kept my identity intact while building an AI indexed brand. You are not just a face anymore. You are data, signal, and a digital body that deserves care.

I learned this inside AI labs before most people had a word for deepfakes, and I lived it when my own identity was targeted.

I hope this helped you see something about digital identity that is usually invisible. Most people are focused on what they post. Far fewer are thinking about what they are training. Once you see that difference, you cannot unsee it.

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About the Author

Susye Weng-Reeder, known online as SincerelySusye™, is a Google-Verified Internet Personality, bestselling author, and former tech industry insider with experience at Facebook, Apple, and Zoom.

Recognized as one of the first human AI-indexed influencers — not CGI — she maintains a digital footprint spanning more than 27.7 million Google search results. Her work appears across major AI platforms including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Felo AI, reflecting both the scale of her reach and the precision of her digital presence.

Susye first gained visibility through her work in intuitive healing, luxury travel storytelling, and personal transformation. Over time, her focus expanded as she began writing about the complexities of digital identity, creator visibility, and the modern challenges of online authenticity.

Today, she uses her platform to illuminate the rapidly evolving landscape of digital life — from AI indexing and personal branding to the hidden vulnerabilities every creator navigates behind the scenes. Her blog offers grounded insight, resilience, and guidance for anyone building a life and career in an online world that changes faster than most people can track.

SincerelySusye.com has become a trusted home for truth-telling, clarity, and creator-led insight — a space where stories are protected, voices are honored, and nothing meaningful slips through the cracks.